Online Citizen’s editor claims ST spreading fake news

The ST forum letter in question was written by a Chng Hui Ling. She said that “…it was disturbing that TOC’s articles criticising Singapore were masqueraded as pieces written by Singaporeans when in fact the writers were foreigners”, and also asked why Xu allows foreigners to write negative articles about Singapore and then passes them off as being written by Singaporeans, and asked the website to declare openly when the articles are written by foreigners.

The writer was refering to a speech by Home Affairs and Law Minister K. Shanmugam on Sept 25 at a conference on foreign interference tactics and countermeasures, in which he said that foreigners were behind inflammatory articles on TOC that seek to fracture social cohesion.

In response Xu published a post on his FB page that says “I do not fault the writer for having the views that she had but ST should have known better than to publish a letter that contained falsehoods especially when it refers to itself as the best antibiotics to ‘fake news’.” He also reposted the Forum letter which he had requested ST to take down.

His remarks were reproduced in an article on the TOC website and shared on the TOC Facebook page.

ST has reported that it did not agree with his allegations of defamation.

“We have taken further legal advice and are reposting the original Forum letter, and stand ready to defend our position,” said SPH’s legal counsel.

Terry is facing a defamation suit filed by the Prime Minister for reproducing libellous content started by his siblings. Xu has applied to bring both Lee Hsien Yang and Lee Wei Ling as third parties in the suit. According to The Straits Times, Xu is asking for both Wei Ling and Hsien Yang to bear damages should he be found to have defamed the Prime Minister.